


War Ballad

by SpraceJunkie



Category: Bandstand - Oberacker/Oberacker & Taylor
Genre: I heard the poem War Ballad by Stanley Moss and thought of Donny right away, so have a short Bandstand fic that i like alot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 14:42:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12866679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpraceJunkie/pseuds/SpraceJunkie
Summary: Hello, Bandstand fandom, we are few but we are strong! My name is Asper and I run the blog the-donnynova-band on Tumblr! I hope my fic isn't terrible as that would be sad in such an unfilled fandom, hopefully, it gets more full soon!The title is taken from the poem War Ballad by Stanley Moss, and if you read it you can see where the inspiration comes from, too! And the song Donny sings is Rockabye My Baby, which was written in 1939, I think, and expressed a pretty popular sentiment among the American people, which I think is really interesting.Anyway, if you wanna come be emo about Bandstand with me, hit me up on Tumblr, I'm always down to talk about it!





	War Ballad

The piano was brought for firewood.  
Donny knew it, because the legs were burning in front of him, chopped off with an ax and letting the body crash to the ground.  
It was somehow both a welcome sight and a hated one, he wanted to play, he wanted to forget he ever knew how to. Music didn’t matter here, nobody could hear it over the sounds of the war, and anyway, the piano was broken and cracked and legless, nobody would even want to hear anything performed on it.  
But at the same time, piano was familiar. It was constant. The same key played the same note, the same pattern made the same sound, and Donny needed that blink of sanity.  
So he knelt down, his knees getting caked in more of the ever-present mud, and picked out a few notes. Soon his hands were moving, plucking out familiar melodies, barely audible but the same time loud enough to cut through the fog that seemed to control his mind all the time.  
“We’re gonna have peace and quiet, and if they start a riot, we’ll sit right back and keep score.” He sang quietly, his voice joining the quiet keystrokes until both were stronger, stronger and louder.  
The fire of the piano’s legs was burning bright, and other soldiers were working their way towards the piano with their axes, first destroying the smaller, easier firewood supplies.  
Donny let the music take over like he used to, let his fingers follow their own path as he started the song over, singing from the beginning.  
“Rockabye my baby, there ain’t gonna be no war.” The song that he had believed in only a few years earlier was the most ironic one he could possibly be playing right now, and yet it was the one he thought was the most fitting.  
“There ain't gonna be no war over here, rockabye my baby fall on the other side.” The glossy top of the piano reflected the moon, sending a reminder of the way he used to be able to look over the top of his music and see the reflections of the lights, the crowd dancing in front of him. The promise that that’s what his life would always be, held in the reflections that were now replaced with moonlight and war.  
“We ain’t gonna need no ride of Paul Revere.” Several of the men had noticed his singing now. They knew he was a musician, he often played when they were camped somewhere safe, but never when they were anywhere like this.  
“We’re gonna have peace and quiet, and if they start a riot, we’ll sit right back and keep score.” At some point, he’d started crying, a few tears streaking through the dirt on his face, but his voice stayed steady and his hand steadier, playing the broken piano like his life depended on it, like playing his music would let him escape into the world where the words he was singing were true.  
“The only place that you'll be marching to will be the corner grocery store.” The men with axes had reached the piano, but they were leaning on the handles, watching and listening, rather than destroying it.  
“So, rockabye my baby, there ain't gonna be no war.” He played the final notes and let his voice fade out, then stood up, futilely brushing at the mud on his knees. When he stood up, the axemen nodded at him and started swinging, cracking through the black body, making the strings resound as they snapped, collecting the fragments of shattered music.  
Donny wasn't like them.  
Donny wasn’t here because he wanted to be, he wasn’t here to be a better soldier or to advance up the ranks, he was here because his song was wrong, because there was a war and it was here and his country said it needed him.  
But as long as he was here, he could be music and light and the kind of sustenance that nobody here had, reminders not only of who they had back home, but what. The kind of swelling music that he knew so well that was all but forgotten here, among the fire and bombs and gunshots and noise and death and chaos.  
The piano was brought for firewood, but fire wasn't the only thing it could ignite, not when music was more powerful than any gunshot could ever be, not when music could relight his soul and give him the strength to keep moving through the hell he was stuck in.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, Bandstand fandom, we are few but we are strong! My name is Asper and I run the blog the-donnynova-band on Tumblr! I hope my fic isn't terrible as that would be sad in such an unfilled fandom, hopefully, it gets more full soon!
> 
> The title is taken from the poem War Ballad by Stanley Moss, and if you read it you can see where the inspiration comes from, too! And the song Donny sings is Rockabye My Baby, which was written in 1939, I think, and expressed a pretty popular sentiment among the American people, which I think is really interesting.
> 
> Anyway, if you wanna come be emo about Bandstand with me, hit me up on Tumblr, I'm always down to talk about it!


End file.
